IPO Vancouver 2017

Graham Brown Band – Long a stalwart in the Vancouver music scene, this fine singer/songwriter serves up a tasty slice of crunchy alt-country, drawing heavily from influences such as Neil Young, Steve Earle, Tom Petty, and Johnny Cash. His latest CD, Give & Take, retains these influences, but also has a stronger rock n’ roll and power pop feel than his previous discs. Crank it up loud and get ready to bob your head and tap your feet!

Colour Tongues – Known for their upbeat choruses, technical power rhythms, and blending of different instrumental patterns that work alongside high-range vocals, Colour Tongues’ music is compelling, yet refreshingly unpredictable. Fans of artists such as Enemies, Minus The Bear, and Phoenix will dig their self-titled EP!

Siobhan DuVall – The leader of Duvallstar, and former guitarist for The Bomshells, Bif Naked, and The Widows (with Billy Hopeless), DuVall is the consummate performer, whether fronting a band or rocking the house solo. Known for her sophisticated sexy power punk, DuVall has played the main stage at the Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival and Sony Playstation Skatespace in Whistler BC, and has appeared on VH-1 in New York City! Her stories in between songs are almost as good as the songs themselves!

Danny Echo – With influences drawing from the greats like The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Beatles, Radiohead, Oasis, and U2, Danny Echo reverberates with all that is melodic, all that is catchy, and all that is rock n’ roll on their latest full length release, Rock Bottoms Up, and barely tones it down for their acoustic EP, Unplugged and Unglued. Smoke machines, projectors, smoking guitars, and fire extinguishers (?!!) have become a part of the visual assault of Danny Echo gigs, making the live show an experience not to be missed!

Edmonton Block Heater – Their 2011 CD, Mars, Massachusetts, has all the jangle and spank you’d expect from a power pop trio – big guitars, hooks, harmonies and handclaps – but with a broader palette and bigger ambitions, taking excursions into folk, country, R&B, and even Latin sounds! It’s a mature, confident set of 14 songs guaranteed to rock the house Saturday night and tend to your hangover Sunday morning. Their latest EP, Rover, is similarly diverse, and will appeal to fans of twangy power pop, folky softpop, and muscular rock!

elle-ectric – Having explored several musical writing styles – from jazz to folk to hip hop to house to top 40 – elle-electric now concerns herself with creating art for art sake. The songs on her recent album, The Queen Of Mars, draw inspiration from her lovers, dirty rock and country guitar riffs, as well as her folk style soul, and combine this with passion and grit to create her own unique cinematic soul meets gritty country rock style. Fans of Lana Del Ray, Metric, and Joni Mitchell will love this stuff! Also, be on the lookout for her 2nd studio album, Kid Sparrow, to be released soon!

Paul Gibbons – The lead singer of beloved Vancouver popsters The Rye Catchers is back with a solo career and a crop of songs well steeped in the Britpop tradition. His latest CD, Out With The Introspect, is chock full of The Beatles’ melodic inspirations, blasting out with the power of Oasis’ stadium thunder, and touched by some ‘80s new-wave grooves and tones. Check it out now!

Gold Stars Are For Suckers – Glam, power pop, Motown, bubble-punk, indie-rock, and a bit of everything in between – it’s all in there, and it’s all good! With a slightly irreverent sense of humor to their lyrics, and a love for what they do borne of their proud admission of being overgrown children, these four veterans of the Vancouver music scene (including Derek McDonald of The Orchid Highway and The Bad Beats) deliver music for beer ninjas, music nerds, bacon lovers, zombie enthusiasts, career students, the unemployable, alcohol evangelists, and anyone else who enjoys music and not taking one’s self too seriously. Their live show will blow you away – they promise!

The IPO All Stars – As their name suggests, this band features an all star cast of Vancouver music scene luminaries from The Orchid Highway, The Walk-Ins, and other special guests, doing something completely different: a selection of cover tunes, some well known, but also a few obscure and challenging numbers that we can’t wait to see them pull off live!

Cass King & The Next Right Thing – Combining the talents of some of Vancouver’s finest musicians, who have previously played in such bands as The Orchid Highway and The Wet Spots, Cass King & The Next Right Thing mix classic ‘60s R&B swing with scrappy garage-punk energy to create their own brand of sultry garage soul rock ‘n roll that makes you want to shake it till you break it! Fans of artists from The Beatles to The Animals to Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings should check them out now!

Rocky Milino Jr. – This is one artist who clearly remembers that rock n’ roll started as the bastard step-child of the blues! His style is reminiscent of great blues-rockers such as George Thorogood or ZZ Top, but with a modern soul flavor similar to Prince or Michael Jackson. He is also the leader of Cause4Drama, a perennial favorite at the 99.3 The CFOX Seeds Contest, and is an electrifying performer either with the band or just on his own, so don’t miss him!

NOT Mentally Prepared – A Vancouver quintet who love nothing more than rocking hard and getting the audience to dance their booties off, so who could not love that!? In their original songs, they specialize in writing about a wide range of topics – the reality of life, love, funny things, weird things, obsessions, emotions, people, etc., but they are also know to throw down a few well chosen covers. Fans of artists from The Rolling Stones to AC/DC to The Cure should check them out! The band features Stephen Quinn of The Irises and many others who have played IPO Vancouver!

Scott Perry – A veteran of Vancouver’s music scene, Perry is known to many an IPO-er for his versatile guitar work and harmony vocals as a member of The Orchid Highway, The Winlaws, and The Top Drawers, but he’s also an accomplished singer/songwriter in his own right! His style follows in the classic tradition of guitar-driven tunesmiths like George Harrison, Jim Croce, Gram Parsons, Johnny Cash and Elliott Smith, and his melodic and intimate songs tell stories of home, inspiration, connection, and love. Watch for his new album, Songs of Serenity, due out in early September!

Pill Squad – Punk and garage rock influenced by the Cramps, Sonics and the Damned, featuring members of the Hip Type, China Syndrome, Full Leather Jacket and the Blow-Up Dolls. We were honored that they made IPO Vancouver 2014 their debut performance, and we’re thrilled to have them back again, but beware: their brand new EP, Pharmacopoeia, and their live performance will leave you longing for a full length!

Preston & Fletcher – If the Avengers were musicians, they would want to be Preston & Fletcher. They share a penchant for hooky melodies, insightful lyrics and British sports cars. Their songs have as many twists and turns as a Rallye Monte Carlo where the drivers are Bacharach, Lennon and McCartney, Aimee Mann and Jon Brion. The consummate psychedelic pop perfectionists, they’ve spent the last couple of years putting the finishing flourishes on what promises to be an extraordinary debut recording, which we can hardly wait to hear!

Jody Quine – Opening her heart up on topics of letting go, being true to yourself, heartache, depression, love, and hope, with a voice that beds down with the shivers under your skin, the songs on Quine’s latest album, Stand Up, will reach into your haunts and pull out the light. Her transcendent vocal style expands from silken sweetness to smoldering power. In 2016 she also lent her voice as both emcee and performing artist to the Live Your Dream Tour, an interactive and educational concert model to inspire children, young adults and community members to pursue music careers, and has been posting uplifting “Shine Your Light” messages on her blog for the past four years. Very cool!

Star Collector – IPO is always thrilled to welcome these stalwarts of the Vancouver scene back to IPO, whether it’s been several years since they last played or only one! Their patented blend of decadent hooky Americana, British power pop and glam influences and powerhouse vocals will knock you off your feet! If you don’t already own them, their Flash Arrows & The Money Shot and Hundred-Bullet-Proof CDs are a “must have” for any true power pop fan, and well-worth seeking out – their IPO show is a rare live performance, which you will not want to miss!

The Top Boost – To assemble The Top Boost, singer/songwriter Hunter Gogo searched for musicians who shared his love for catchy melodies and vocal harmonies informed by classic ’60s groups like The Beatles, The Byrds and The Zombies. He found drummer Greg Johnston and guitarist Kirill Yurtsev, and together they are the perfect modern psychedelic garage pop power trio! Able to seamlessly incorporate classic sounds into their music without ignoring contemporary influences, they are creating something that is both familiar and distinctive. Their debut EP, Turn Around, recorded and mixed in Vancouver and mastered at Abbey Road Studios in London, is a kaleidoscopic sound collage driven by jangly guitars, pounding drums and wistful harmonies. They are so good, we just had to make the single from the EP, “What If She Loves You?,” the lead off track on this year’s IPO Vol. 20 CD Compilation! We can’t wait for a full length and to see and hear these guys do their thing live again!

We Found A Lovebird – An enigmatic, yet highly engaging band, not hard enough to hang with the metal guys, not poppy enough to bop with the indie-folk bands that commercial radio can’t get enough of, and certainly not punk enough to rage with the punks, regardless of the generation. Still there’s no denying that the ‘70s inflected singer-songwriter material borrows from all those genres for their 3rd release, Lobby. Fans of Big Star, Television, Wilco, Elvis Costello, and Guided By Voices will all love this bird’s song!

Wrestling Emma – A glam-power-pop-soul-rock n’ roll trio featuring members of Chimpanzeebras, who have been described as “Randy Newman meets Randy Savage!” (Chet “Bible Belt” Shammelhaff) Their debut self-titled EP will also appeal to fans of T Rex, XTC, and They Might Be Giants, and their live show is not to be missed!

Canadian Artists From Outside of Vancouver

The Burn Ins – An award-winning female-fronted Canadian Indie Blues Rock Band from Elkford, BC and Camrose AB, their music will take you on a delightfully dark journey into a foot-stomping good time. Aaron Lyall just wants to bang on his drums all day, Aaron Mokry has guitar licks so tasty they make your mom’s cooking look bad, and bassist Kristine Lyall fronts this power trio with her own brand of soulful vocal stylings. Check out their brand new EP, Start A Fire, and their IPO showcase!

Amelie Patterson – A lyrically minded singer songwriter from Banff, Patterson has completed two music residencies at the esteemed Banff Centre for Creative Arts and was awarded with the honoured position of Poet Laureate for the Banff National Park. Since the release of her debut album, Roll Honey Roll, at Canadian Music Week in 2016, she’s taken to the road, hitting stages at The Calgary Folk Music Festival, The Banff Centre for Creative Arts, and smaller venues all over Alberta and BC, and we’re honored to have IPO Vancouver as one of the stops on her tour. “Touching lyrics aside, her trump card is definitely her soulful yet incredibly graceful voice, with hints of Leah Fay (July Talk), Jacquie Neville (The Balconies) and Feist.” (Nicole Wolfe, Canadian Beats 2016)

International Artists

Morty Shallman – Creator of the world’s first Novel with Songs, , this dapper, affable Angelino is known for his cutting-edge mashups of pop songs and pulp fiction. Fusing elements of disco, dance pop, indie pop, alt-rock and EDM, with soaring melodies, intelligent lyrics and classic pop song craft, Shallman serves up a glowing succession of catchy tunes and infectious beats that will brighten the playlists of listeners, dancers, youtubers and radio programmers alike. His brand new EP, Pop Fiction, a neo pop/indie noir concept thriller, has been called “A truly groundbreaking accomplishment in conceptual music and art” (Screaming Match Productions) – check it out now!